This Mouse Knows How To Tweet

I'm not even talking about Twitter. Thanks to the wonderful world of genetic engineering (which is the greatest thing ever), this mouse no longer squeaks. It tweets. Yes, like a bird.

The tweeting ability of the mouse actually came about by accident. Sort of. As AFP tells it, scientists at the University of Osaka were working on a study to see how genetic mutation facilitates evolution. So after breeding genetically modified mice that were prone to copy DNA wrong, they happened upon one mouse that could unexpectedly tweet. They've since bred over a hundred of these "singing mice".

Scientists are especially intrigued by this, because tweeting among birds functions as a low-level language for them. So they believe these noises from the tweeting mouse aren't entirely as random as the normal squeak. And they're also curious how it will affect normal, non-tweeting mice exposed to these sounds.

And while I can generally get down with all this, I do have one concern about all this genetic modifying going on: between tweeting and having two dads, the next generation of mice are going to have some serious identity crises and a costly therapy bill. [AFP via PopSci]

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